TRUE TO THE CAUSE
I love Halo. The extent that Bungie went to in creating not only a great story line, but an extended universe that almost rivals Star Wars, just boggles me. It's pure genius. I also love comics. All my life, I have followed the tales put forth by DC, Marvel and Image and have seen how imagination has no bounds. It is truly liberating.

I waited for years for any Halo comic book media to be released, and when the Halo graphic novel came out in 2005, I scooped it up as soon as it hit the shelves. I could see the direction the studio wanted to go with the main story about the Covenant cleanup crew aboard the Flood-infested cruiser. I actually enjoyed the story about Sgt. Johnson's escape from the Forerunner structure. I drooled over the image gallery. But the distance of the tangents taken overall was a let-down. And as for most of the art, well, I was very disappointed. From the speed-painted look of the main story, to the poorly rendered 3D backgrounds of "Armor Testing" to Moebius' toddler-like style of art (his worst comic ever), I was left wanting.

Then came the announcement of the four-issue miniseries "Halo: Uprising" from Marvel. Well, the story makes no real sense, the art is lackluster at best (I'm not a fan of Alex Maleev's extreme-shadows-like-he-traced-a-photo style at all), and as I am writing this in January of 2008, the third issue has apparently been put on galactic backorder until either Alex can finish the art, Marvel can squeeze a bit more cash out of it, or Bendis can finally figure out where the heck this is going anyway. So it again falls to us, the fans to bestow to the rest of the community what we are really yearning for.

Whenever the Halo movie finally makes it into production, we fans want a feature film about the actual Halo story line, not a Joss Whedon miniseries about Captain Keyes' years at the Naval Academy. In the same way, we don't want comics about Half-Jaw, some female SPARTAN who decided to leave active service to start a family, or even a hotel concierge and a pop singer. We want Halo. We want the Master Chief. And we want it in as true a way as William Dietz gave us "The Flood." So here it is. I hope everyone enjoys it.


BOXED IN
The layout of the comic pages is more simplistic than I usually prefer, being more panel-based (like DC comics) than dynamic page-based (like Image Comics). I did this to make it easier for me to release the comic one panel at a time, as I finish them, and still try to keep some semblance of the printed page layout in the online version.

DECISIONS AND CHANGES
Before anyone starts yelling "Hey! You're breaking canon here!" I want to explain a few things.

MJOLNIR: Early on I realized that all the Halo art I had drawn was of the Mark VI armor. Why? Because it looks cooler. It presents a more visually striking presence. And the Mark VI helmet doesn't have that oblong bump on the back that makes the Master Chief look like a retarded kid in safety gear. So, yes, when the Master Chief appears in this comic, he'll be wearing the Mark VI armor. Refined designs are always better than the first go-arounds. Technology advances, and computers can easily handle a far greater polygon count than they used to. And as far as Bungie is concerned, I firmly believe that if they could go back and put a suit of armor as cool as the Mark VI in the original Halo game, they would jump at the chance. Official canon simply compensates for original designs and a lower polygon count model by inserting the idea of different versions of the MJOLNIR armor.

ELITES: I deviated from the tall, slender Elites of the Halo game, and decided rather to go with the look of the Elites in the Halo Wars game. They look so much more intimidating and dangerous, like a warrior caste that really could wage a bloody war across the universe. I think the result is very good.